In September 2015, Montreal choreographer Gérard Reyes presented his solo The Principle of Pleasure at Théâtre La Chapelle. What follows are excerpts from a conversation Reyes and I had after the end of the show’s run.​SYLVAIN VERSTRICHT The section of The Principle of Pleasure where you danced for the person sitting on the chair was especially potent for me because in that moment we (the audience) became voyeurs, which oddly I didn’t feel we were before that point. A question that kept popping up in my mind during the show, which might sound absurd though I don’t think it actually is, was “Are we just spectators?” What is the role of the audience in The Principle of Pleasure?GÉRARD REYES From my experience as a seasoned concert dancer, I was sick of the conventional separation between audience and performer in a theatre, whereby the audience places primacy on the artist, yet the artist refuses to truly acknowledge the audience until the end of the show. There is a latent potential for exchange there! While I was conceiving The Principle of Pleasure, I was attending various performative events and spaces that were new to me – trans bars, female strip clubs, BDSM/fetish events, queer parties, vogue balls – each with its own code of conduct. These codes opened me up to consider a more equitable and fulfilling relationship between the ‘audience’ and ‘performer’ that is based on shared responsibility and communication. I propose a situation, encourage the audience to choose a role/perspective which speaks to them within it and hope that it will mutate over the course of the show: spectator, client, voyeur, performer, lover, dom, sub, friend, person, etc. There is another dimension to the audience. It is both inside (live participants) and outside the theatre (i.e. on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and wherever else people decide to post photos and videos they take during the show).VERSTRICHT Speaking of Instagram, the image is a huge part of the show; there are two mirrors onstage, two photographers, one videographer, and – as you mentioned – audience members are also invited to take pictures with their cell phones. Why did you decide to set the performance in that environment?REYES Yes, image is a part of the show, but it is only the most superficial layer of the work. I use the elements you mentioned as well as others (mirrors, chairs, cameras, lighting, humans) to create images, define space and create proximity in order to allow for more intimate relationships to emerge between the audience and myself. That is where my greater interest lies. The reason I allow photos during the show is four-fold: 1) to give the audience the freedom to make choices; 2) to invite the audience to enter into a more active relationship with me and their surroundings; 3) to subvert conventions; and 4) to play with the idea of celebrity. I want to make the theatre a more inviting place to be, where people can relax and be themselves. One of my strategies is to allow the audience to do what they do all the time when they’re not in the theatre – talk, move around, stand, sit, use their phones. I want to address the audience as individuals and encourage them to express themselves. Hopefully some will come to the realization that behaviour is a choice. We have more control than we think over ourselves and any given space. Our individual choices help inform the choices of those around us.VERSTRICHT A big part of the way you also play with celebrity is by using Janet Jackson songs throughout the show, not to mention that she also provides you with the title for the piece. There have been quite a few works recently where queer and/or fem men have emulated pop stars (Beyonce is a particularly popular one these days). I’ve been wondering if it’s because, as a fem man in our culture, the highest level of celebrity one can seemingly aspire to is to be on RuPaul's Drag Race. It sort of makes me think about karaoke and how it’s an opportunity for people, if only for a moment, to sing as if they were their favourite pop star. It also plays into ball culture and how people who had really hard lives could act like divas for a day. This is a difficult question because it extends beyond you, but I was wondering if you could talk about what your personal reasons were for playing with the idea of celebrity...REYES We feel we “know” celebrities by their regular appearances on magazine covers and the banal details they share about their lives. But the physical and emotional distance they maintain from their fans actually gives them a power that makes them appear elusive, unique and desirable. I play with the cliché of this kind of celebrity at the beginning of my piece by presenting an extroverted character who is not embarrassed about displaying his body or showing self-appreciation or being filmed or photographed. But I want the external image of celebrity that opens my piece to fade to the background of the more multidimensional personas who the audience encounters once we are all on stage together. These personas I created embody the deeper layers of my sexuality, imagination, pleasure and desire that I have discovered and cultivated over the last few years. They are glamorous and physically attractive, nevertheless they are not shallow. Rather they are personable, generous and open to sharing their intimacy with whoever is willing to come along.VERSTRICHT Do you know Robert St-Amour? He's basically the best dance spectator. He goes to see a lot of shows and almost always writes a little something about them on Facebook after. After seeing your piece, he wrote “Les premiers moments sont inconfortables (pour moi), mais peu à peu, ‘j’apprivoise la bête’ ou je dirais plutôt que ‘la bête m’a appprivoisé’. La suite devient agréable et je suis presque déçu de reprendre ma place pour la fin de la présentation.” When I read that, I realized how important queer performance still is. Maybe sometimes, as queer people, we take it for granted.REYES I want to respond to St-Amour’s comment about my solo – that he was uncomfortable at first but then “the beast” (i.e. I) tamed him. It is indeed my intention to softly confront the audience but with the hope that they will overcome their fear. If they feel uncomfortable with my revealing costume or being on stage with me or in a moment when my eyes meet theirs, then the non-judgemental environment that I create is propitious for them to feel their discomfort and let go of it (if they so choose).

For better or for worse, don’t trust the trailer for Bigfooted. It makes the dance show choreographed by Toronto’s vjk look like fast-paced, mindless Fringe fun, but it’s actually quite slow. This is a good thing, especially at first since the lighting is essentially given over to spectators to handle with the help of flashlights. Though the audience was of modest size the day I saw it, they were overzealous with their newfound power and the lighting was a bit much at first, to say the least. However, this soon subsided and at one point the audience even managed to symbiotically create an unexpectedly effective lighting design by repeatedly turning the lights on and off, making a minimalist section all the more compelling in the process. The end pretty much comes out of nowhere, but it’s a minor slip in what is otherwise a surprisingly strong production. Out of the three Fringe shows I’ve seen so far, Bigfooted is the most engaging, yet it had the smallest crowd. So stop being racist, stop encouraging your loser Montreal friends, and go see Bigfooted. Bonus: all four dancers are beautiful. ****

I don’t know if the four solos that compose Liliane Moussa’s FINALE AU SOL are always performed in the same order, but I’m hoping they’re not. There’s no reason why they should be, so why not see how their sequence would affect the show? The one that most stood out for me was Marine Rixhon’s (and not just because she shares a name with the heroine of the Jacques Poulin novel I’m currently reading), which might surprise since it doesn’t require the level of physicality that the other three do. Maybe that’s precisely the reason why. Rixhon repeatedly swipes the hair away from her forehead with the tip of her fingers, which she then uses like tentacles to caress the air when her arm is down by her side. It is this smallness that demands our attention. Simon Girard provides the show with momentum courtesy of the electro/synth/techno of Murcof, College, and The Toxic Avenger.

Salves, Maguy Marin (Danse Danse) Septembre 26-28 Because last time Marin was in town, it was back in 2007 with Umwelt, which still holds as one of the best shows performed in Montreal this past decade.Prismes, Benoît Lachambre (L’Agora de la danse) October 16-19 Because Lachambre made quite the comeback last year with Snakeskins, his best show in years.Henri Michaux: Mouvements + Gymnopédies, Marie Chouinard (Danse Danse) October 31-November 2 Because Chouinard’s last show, LE NOMBRE D’OR (LIVE), is the one that has had the biggest impact on me since performer Carole Prieur first translated Henri Michaux’s drawings into dance back in 2005. We can only imagine what it will be like when all the dancers of the company will follow in her footsteps.Cuire Le Pain De Nos Corps, Sarah Dell’ava (Tangente) November 21-24 Because Dell’ava is probably the most intelligent mover in Montreal.LA VALEUR DES CHOSES, Jacques Poulin-Denis (Lachapelle) January 21-25 Because Poulin-Denis manages to expose the absurdity of human life while remaining funny and touching.The Nutcracker, Maria Kefirova (Tangente) January 30-February 2 Because Kefirova is one of the few choreographers in Montreal who knows how to deal with video in live performance.The adaptation project, Michael Trent (L’Agora de la danse) February 12-14 Because the last time Trent was in Montreal, he surprised everyone by being as conceptual as he was playful.Reviens Vers Moi Le Ventre En Premier, Annie Gagnon (Tangente) February 27-March 2 Because she’s one of the few choreographers in Montreal who’s not afraid to be serious.Mayday remix, Mélanie Demers (Usine C) March 12-14 Because, with just a few works, Demers has managed to establish herself as one of the most consistently good dancemakers in Montreal and it will be a treat to see her revisit her past works before moving on to the next artistic stage in her career.Mange-Moi, Andréane Leclerc (Tangente) March 20-23 Because Leclerc’s contortionism isn’t just a circus trick; it’s a philosophy that allows her to approach and explore space differently.http://dansedanse.ca/DDA_1314/en/http://www.agoradanse.com/enhttp://tangente.qc.ca/http://lachapelle.org/http://www.usine-c.com/

The problem with pain is that one’s is always felt, whereas that of others is merely seen. What I’m saying is: one’s most minimal pain is more felt than the most extreme suffering of others. It might be for this reason that director Brigitte Haentjens chose the second person for the title of the duet she choreographed for Anne Le Beau and Francis Ducharme: Ta douleur. Your pain… never as great as mine. It’s the kind of detachment that each performer exhibits when confronted with the other’s suffering. The same could be said for this spectator. To be fair, Ta douleur gains self-awareness in its most humorous moments. Early in the show, after feeding into the melodramatic acting that constitutes the bulk of the performance, Le Beau and Ducharme purge all the platitudes we tell each other: “C’est pas facile, hein?” For the most part however, Haentjens is interested in when the body is the object of such pain that it becomes unintelligible. The victim of an overabundance of emotion, it merely cries, trembles, convulses. It is but the physical appearance of pain, little more than a blocking of emotional states. This is only enhanced by the decision to constantly fade in and out of black. This fragmentation prevents Haentjens from finding the links that would have made Ta douleur more choreographic. It is as though, without words, the woman who is more used to directing plays did not know how to make one scene flow into the next. Despite its minimal story and movement, the pain explored here is concrete. Too concrete. It is uniform in its capitalization on pain as and from violence. This might be an effort to make it theatrical, but it only ends up undermining itself by constantly striking the same loud note. In the end, Ta douleur plays like other people’s pain: overly dramatic, blown out of proportion, easy to disregard.Ta douleur18-22 & 25-29 September at 8pmThéâtre La Chapellelachapelle.org514.843.7738Tickets: 30$ / Students: 25$

Benoît Lachambre’s Snakeskins: because you can only accuse Lachambre of being so hit-or-miss due to his uncompromising commitment to his artistic pursuits… and he’s due for a hit. (October 10-12, Usine C) Nicolas Cantin’s Grand singe: because nobody else manages to pack as much punch by doing so little. (October 30-November 1, Usine C) Brian Brooks’s Big City & Motor: because Brooks explores concepts that only push his choreography further into the physical world, turning the human body into little more than a machine. (November 22-25, Tangente) Karine Denault’s PLEASURE DOME: because we haven’t seen her work since 2007, when she presented the intimate Not I & Others using only half of the small Tangente space, dancing with humility, as though the line between performer and spectator simply hinged on a matter of perspective. (February 6-9, Agora de la danse) Pieter Ampe & Guilherme Garrido’s Still Standing You: because Ampe & Garrido have created one of the most compelling shows of the past few years, a dense study of masculinity and friendship covered with a thick layer of Jackass trash. (February 12-16, La Chapelle) Sharon Eyal & Gai Bachar’s Corps de Walk: because it’s the first time we get to see a work by Eyal in six years, when she blew us away with a non-stop human parade that was decidedly contemporary in its transnationalism and use of everyday movements like talking on cell phones. (February 28-March 2, Danse Danse) Mélanie Demers’s Goodbye: because, much like David Lynch did with Inland Empire, Demers demonstrated that an artist doesn’t need to instill suspension of disbelief in its audience to work, that dance can be powerful as dance just as film can be powerful as film. (March 20-22, Usine C) Maïgwenn Desbois’s Six pieds sur terre: because Desbois demonstrated that one doesn’t need to sacrifice art in order to make integrated dance. (March 21-24, Tangente) Yaëlle & Noémie Azoulay’s Haute Tension: because Yaëlle Azoulay came up with the most exclamative piece ever presented at the Biennales de Gigue Contemporaine. (March 28-30, Tangente) Dorian Nuskind-Oder’s Pale Water: because with simple means Nuskind-Oder manages to create everyday magic. (May 10-12, Tangente)